Droughts have deep, widespread and underestimated impacts on societies, ecosystems, and economies. They incur costs that are borne disproportionately by the most vulnerable people. The extensive impacts of drought are consistently underreported even though they span large areas, cascade through systems and scales, and linger through time, affecting millions of people and contributing to food insecurity, poverty, and inequality. Climate change is increasing temperatures and disrupting rainfall patterns, increasing the frequency, severity, and duration of droughts in many regions across the globe. As we move towards a 2˚C warmer world, urgent action is required to better understand and more effectively manage drought risk to reduce the devastating toll on human lives and livelihoods, and ecosystems.

The GAR Special Report on Drought 2021 explores the systemic nature of drought and its impacts on achievement of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the SDGs and human and ecosystems health and wellbeing.

# Within the next 80 years,
# 129 countries will experience an increase in drought exposure mainly due to climate change alone, and
# 38 countries primarily due to the interaction between climate change and population growth (Smirnov et al., 2016)

The way in which we understand and manage drought risk is directly linked to our ability to meet the targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.

# 20 MILLION PEOPLE across Africa and the Middle East came to the brink of starvation in 2017, when drought led to the worst humanitarian crisis since the Second World War.

# UP TO 700 MILLION PEOPLE are at risk of being displaced as a result of drought by 2030.

# TWO THIRDS OF THE WORLD will be living under “water-stressed” conditions by 2025 – when demand outstrips supply.

The GAR Special Report on Drought 2021 calls for immediate action to reduce drought risks. Thinking ahead and acting in advance of drought has far lower costs than reacting and responding to the impacts once drought hits.

“Drought is on the verge of becoming the next pandemic and there is no vaccine to cure it. Drought has directly affected 1.5 billion people so far this century and this number will grow dramatically unless the world gets better at managing this risk and understanding its root causes and taking action to stop them,” said Mami Mizutori, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction.

“Most of the world will be living with water stress in the next few years. Demand will outstrip supply during certain periods. Drought manifests over months, years, sometimes decades, and the results are felt just as long. Drought exhibits and exacerbates the social and economic inequalities that are deep-rooted within our systems and hits the most vulnerable the hardest."

Ms. Mizutori was speaking at the launch of the GAR Special Report on Drought 2021, which was prepared by a team of experts commissioned by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.

Also, speaking at the event, Ibrahim Thiaw, Executive-Secretary for the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, spoke before opening the global observance of the World Day for Combating Desertification. "We must all act now to ensure that droughts do not set humanity back on its great endeavour to build a sustainable future," he said.

Droughts have always been part of the human experience, but the damage and costs resulting from them are seriously underestimated. This is due to widespread and cascading impacts that are often not explicitly attributed to the knock-on effects of drought.

Estimates of costs arising from drought impacts from 1998 to 2017 show droughts have affected at least 1.5 billion people and led to economic losses of at least US$124 billion across the world. Estimates of some of the direct costs include annual losses in the United States of America of approximately US$6.4 billion per annum, and some €9 billion in the European Union.

The effect of severe droughts on India’s gross domestic product is estimated at 2–5%. As a result of the Australian Millennium Drought, total factor agricultural productivity in Australia fell by 18% in the period 2002–2010.

The Special Report on Drought 2021 calls for a new global mechanism to support countries in addressing the transboundary nature of drought risk through strengthened risk governance, partnerships and innovation at regional level and risk-informed action at community level.

The report also promotes the establishment of national drought resilience partnerships that would mobilize public, private and civil society partners and work to ensure a seamless link between national and local levels.

It makes the following recommendations:

Prevention has far lower human, financial and environmental costs than reaction and response.
Increased understanding of complex systemic risks and improved risk governance can lead to effective action on drought risk.
Drought resilience partnerships at the national and local levels will be critical to managing drought in a warming world where rainfall will become ever more unpredictable and require practical solutions to tackle issues like deforestation, excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides, overgrazing, salination, waterlogging and soil erosion.
A mechanism for drought management at the international and national levels could help address the complex and cascading nature of drought risk.
Financial systems and services need to evolve to encourage cooperative approaches, to promote social protection mechanisms and to encourage risk transfer and contingent financing, so as to provide diversified adaptive support to drought risk management.
New pathways are needed to encourage inclusion of indigenous and local knowledge, sharing of values and opportunities for realizing the benefits of effective risk governance, and effective sharing of drought risk management experiences.